The coordinated push to eliminate weather websites

[Dan Robinson]

I wanted to do some more research on southern US winter storms tonight, hoping to find some science journal papers or other types of resources on it. Go and search for "southern us winter storms". It's nothing but pages and pages of results of absolutely useless mainstream media articles. Holy cow, this really is the end of the internet as we've all known it. How could Google just totally abandon its reason for existing like this? Just incredible to see. I actually could do better at the library at this point!

As for the race to get everything into AI, I get the impression it's not going well. Google's AI Overviews are pulling info from things like articles in The Onion, including this gem when searching about Tom Coughlin's retirement:

"Tom Coughlin Retires from Family to Spend More Time with Team" is a quote from a New York Giants head coach who said he valued his time with his family but wanted to focus on other things.

Explanation

Coughlin said he valued his time with his family but wanted to focus on more important things. He also said that he would consider remaining with the Giants in some capacity. However, the Giants framed his exit as a retirement.

 

[Mike Smith]

Dan,

I often have the same problem. FWIW, I went to "Google Scholar" and found this: Synoptic-Scale Features Common to Heavy Snowstorms in the Southeast United States

 

[Jeff Duda]

Dan, what kind of articles were you hoping to find? If research based, then I echo Mike's comments: use Google Scholar. It is pretty decent.

 

[Dan Robinson]

I just like to occasionally read anything that's been written or published about it. It's a niche area of study that doesn't get much attention in traditional weather circles.

 

[JamesCaruso]

Just a suggestion as I haven’t tested it, but maybe try other search engines, including Bing with its underlying Copilot / OpenAI platform. ChatGPT has web search now too. Although it generates its own responses, it provides source footnotes that you can then go to.

I tried that and first got this:




So I gave it another prompt and got this:




Looks like the sources are pretty outdated though… And this is using the premium/paid version of ChatGPT, so YMMV (i.e., worse) if using the free version.

 

[Andy Wehrle]

Whenever I re(read) through one of the relatively few extant thorough, still-updated chaser websites such as OP @Dan Robinson's or @Skip Talbot's and am briefly inspired to create my own in order to have a "one-stop shop" for all my chases and what I've observed on them; instead of having my words and images scattered among, say, Reports threads here, captions on Flickr, and YouTube descriptions, it's Dan's original rationale for creating this thread that gives me pause. Would anyone actually see it, or would I basically just be doing it for myself?

 

[Laney Cole]

Whenever I re(read) through one of the relatively few extant thorough, still-updated chaser websites such as OP @Dan Robinson's or @Skip Talbot's and am briefly inspired to create my own in order to have a "one-stop shop" for all my chases and what I've observed on them; instead of having my words and images scattered among, say, Reports threads here, captions on Flickr, and YouTube descriptions, it's Dan's original rationale for creating this thread that gives me pause. Would anyone actually see it, or would I basically just be doing it for myself?

I’ve been having similar thoughts today about starting my own project as well. I enjoy reading Dan’s blog and a few others that focus on the photographic, personal, and insightful journeys of storm chasers and photographers. If I find value in these stories, I’m sure others would appreciate them too.

I’ve seen your Flickr account and would love to hear your personal account of the events you’ve captured. There’s so much to learn from chasers like you and Dan.

I say go for it!
- Laney

 

[JamesCaruso]

Whenever I re(read) through one of the relatively few extant thorough, still-updated chaser websites such as OP @Dan Robinson's or @Skip Talbot's and am briefly inspired to create my own in order to have a "one-stop shop" for all my chases and what I've observed on them; instead of having my words and images scattered among, say, Reports threads here, captions on Flickr, and YouTube descriptions, it's Dan's original rationale for creating this thread that gives me pause. Would anyone actually see it, or would I basically just be doing it for myself?

Andy, I would encourage you to do it, even if you are just doing it for yourself. There is a lot of intrinsic value in it, even (or especially) if it is just for yourself.

I like to learn about the subject of creativity and the creative process through reading and listening to podcasts, and there seems to be a unanimous sentiment about the value of creating content (instead of just consuming it), even if it’s just for yourself. Some people may not put their stuff out there at all, but even those who do are ultimately doing it for themselves and what they get out of it. It’s just like the value people find in keeping a personal journal that nobody ever sees.

I have Word documents containing journals of every one of my chase vacations, separate and distinct from the chase summaries I may have posted here. They include more content about non-chasing aspects of trips, the emotions of chasing, etc. Nobody but close family and friends have ever seen any of them (and many have not been seen by anyone).

Writing clarifies thought, and chase summaries are a great way to make sense of your adventures. You already do that here, but there is great value in having them in a collection to call your own, ideally in hard copy that does not risk being lost to the digital abyss. (I have to take my own advice and print out my own storm chasing Word documents before they get lost; I fear there may already be a season or two on older laptops that I can no longer even get into…)

 

[Jamie H]

I don't know what the cost of hosting some form of cloud storage would be, but things like your chase summaries would be perfect for permanent archiving, because someday there could be information contained within which is of use to someone. Or maybe it'll just be nice to look back on chasing the 'old way' in cars with maps and data, because by then we'll be sitting in drones or something!

 

[Ben Holcomb]

1. Web hosting is cheap to extremely cheap. My site is something like 110GB big and its less than $10/month. If you host videos on a video hosting site like youtube, you will save $. I'm hosting on Amazon S3/Cloudfront but there are plenty of options out there.
2. Be committed to a website. It's a lot of work to keep up with it. I never watch TV, so it's one of the activities I do to fill that time.

It's relatively easy to learn the ins and outs of websites running wordpress. It's pretty simple to use. I do pay for a few plugins, but that isn't too expensive either. I find it cool to have for my own reference, but I do hope some people now or in the future find it useful for the data about certain days.

I came to the realization the other day that May 3, 99 was as far ago now as Super Outbreak in 74 was when I was young & interested in weather. I would have loved to stumble across website(s) of chasers and to learn about some of the early big storms.

 

[Dan Robinson]

I keep going from a.) momentum, I've been going for 30 years, why stop now, b.) I can't remember details or even minor chases from years back, it's nice to have a record I can go back to and c.) the hope that one day the internet will right itself and go back to some semblance of order and out of corporate dominance like it was before.

Ben's right, a website is cheap these days and Wordpress is easy to learn.

 

[Boris Konon]

Just a suggestion as I haven’t tested it, but maybe try other search engines, including Bing with its underlying Copilot / OpenAI platform. ChatGPT has web search now too. Although it generates its own responses, it provides source footnotes that you can then go to.

I tried that and first got this:

View attachment 26672


So I gave it another prompt and got this:


View attachment 26673

Looks like the sources are pretty outdated though… And this is using the premium/paid version of ChatGPT, so YMMV (i.e., worse) if using the free version.

I saw a post recently about a certain weather record question asked (record stretch days above 90 F for a specific state I think), and multiple AI search programs were asked, and different answers were given for each one! It was suggested that these AI search programs are just looking a what is said on-line, rather than going to official sources, such as NCEI. Is this not of concern?

A popular AI program was asked, "how many major hurricanes have hit the U.S. since 2000?" And it proceed to list all hurricanes in the Atlantic that made landfall in the U.S. that were not just a major hurricane at landfall, but any time in their existence. See the problem here?

 

[James K]

Personal opinion, but I don't know that its really so much a specific intent to eliminate independent websites, but rather an intent to promote profit.

For example with searches... there's a 2-parter thing at play here:
Large companies can/do pay for better places in search results.
And as a background thing clicks/views of ads on sites/pages (many of which are driven by google) from search results drive more revenue *and* feeds back into the algorithm ... which then promotes upping similar results (both in type of website *and* by type of ads set to be displayed on those sites) in later searches. Then you've got a feedback loop: more similar sites (and their programmed ads) get fed into the algorithm...

As time goes on, all the personal/independent/scientific get lower & lower result rankings by fewer clicks *and* since many have no/few ads, they miss out on that part backfeeding into the algorithm as well, so an even lower result.

Its a sad & vicious circle driven all by profit
Web searches these days suck, its really getting hard to find good results on allot of stuff.
I personally can recognize allot of crap just looking at the URL's and don't even wast the time clicking... I've also networked all the major ad-servers I know of. So yeah I'm messing with the algorithms .lol.
Actually as far as Google, now that they require JavaScript enabled to even use the search, I'm pretty much done with it.

 

[Jason N]

Andy,

My small take on your post is, that at a minimum, it's a personal archive, at best it gets hits, at worst it doesn't get traffic, but if you're not into it for the likes or money, then it's purely entertainment and anything that happens above your personal expectations is a win.

Now, who's starting the State of the Chase 2025 thread soon, I looked, and I haven't seen one yet

 

[Tony Laubach]

I am not formally planning to hard launch this til March 1, and while I have a story behind bringing mine back to life, I will save that story for the formal launch. But since there is discussion, I will tease the fact that since the summer of 2024, I have been working on bringing my old website back to life. Somewhere around 2017, I let my domain (and the nearly two-decade long website) vanish. Like many, I just got too busy with life to maintain and keep up with a site. While I cannot say that my free time has opened up significantly (hence the now 7-month long slog to get to this point), my free time priorities have certainly changed, and this is what I am choosing to do during the mid-life crisis part of my life. This will involve bringing back many of my legacy chasing logs, a lot on the TWISTEX era chasing, and many logs and stories from the nearly 6-year gap between my websites, many of those logs having never seen the light of day minus a social media post or barely-edited YouTube video. And of of course, many modern-day chases, a few of which have been shared here over the years.

This is 100% a passion project... at this time, I have no plans to ad up the space, and other than a donation page, I'm doing this purely out of desire to bring back a lot of my history. I'll be 30-years deep into this insanity in 2027, so there is plenty there that will be new for a couple generations worth of folks.

In addition, a lot has changed in the web development world since I last was here. Been kinda fun getting up to speed a bit, learning new techniques, and seeing a lot of the stuff I use to have to code raw can now be done in a point-and-click environment. I will say it was a little annoying to see so much has been paywalled, and not just a one-time purchase, but subscription stuff. But alas, like Ben said above, I've been pleasantly surprised with how little investment I've needed financially to get to where I am now. Most of my investment has been sheer time. I took a while to settle on a look, all while it doesn't vary too much from previous versions, I had to obviously find more modern routes to get to the look I have settled on. The rest has been relatively easy and certainly a good distraction to keep myself busy in my off-hours.

That said, look forward to a formal launch and announcement of the new site in a couple weeks. While I won't have my content 100% caught up by then, I assure you they'll be plenty to look through with plenty more to come, plus adding as I go along.